‘What – what was that?‘he asked her.

‘They that are born of Elesstar return to Her. She takes back Her own.’ She spoke dreamily, distantly, as if drugged.

‘But-but I saw –’

‘Elesstar’s water-snakes. They strip the flesh from the bodies, the bones sink into the sediment.’

Acir swallowed back a sudden surge of nausea.

‘This is not how we honour our dead in Allegonde. We treat them with respect.’

‘You bury your dead in the earth to be eaten by worms. Is it so very different, Guerrior? Come back on the Day of the Dead. Then you will witness a miracle.’

Acir’s hand automatically touched the sign of the Rose to ward off evil. He could still taste the lingering bitterness of bile at the back of his throat.

‘On that day the sky-shaft is opened to let them fly free. The winged souls.’

She was talking in riddles. He tried to make sense of the skewed religious doctrine.

‘The souls fly from the reservoir?’

‘Dragonflies.’ She pointed to the ancient carven stone and, peering by the light of her torch, he saw carved figures: stick men and women, over whose heads double-winged insectile creatures hovered. ‘It is our belief that when the dragonflies hatch from the waters of the reservoir, they transport the souls of our dead as they fly to the light. It is a moment of supreme transcendence. You will not, cannot, understand until you have witnessed it.’

She was right. He did not, could not, understand. It seemed to contradict the teachings of Mhir on which he had based his life. His hands had become hot and sticky; looking down, he saw that he was still clutching the lotos candle and it had begun to melt.

The Priestess lit the wick and he watched it flower into light between his fingers.

‘Stay a moment.’ She raised her fingers to touch his forehead… and then his breast, lingering just over the place where the Rose was tattooed.

He gazed questioningly into her flame-warmed eyes and saw a frown pass, evanescent as a fast-moving cloud, across her calm gaze. Her lids fluttered, her eyes losing focus – and he was afraid she was going to faint.

‘The Lotos is fading, dying…’ Her voice was low, dream-drowsed. ‘Blood blooms in the heart of the Rose. Listen! Elesstar calls to you, Rose-bearer. Can you not hear her voice?’

‘Elesstar calls to me? What do you mean?’ Acir’s Guerrior training had made him suspicious of any such kind of religious trances or seeings. Yet the Priestess’s words seemed unpremeditated – and spontaneous. ‘What did you see?’

But the moment of Seeing had passed and the Priestess stared at him as if their conversation had never taken place.

‘Go,’ she said, turning away from him. ‘Place your candle on the waters.’

Acir went to follow her – and then remembered where he was; a stranger in a foreign temple. He turned back, his questions unanswered.